Evaluation Essay Sample on Coca-Cola Company: America's Iconic Soft Drink Brand

Introduction

The Coca-Cola Company is an American multinational corporation that manufactures, retails and markets nonalcoholic syrups and beverage concentrates. The company is widely known for its flagship product Coca-Cola that was invented in 1886 by John Stith Pemberton, a pharmacist in Atlanta, Georgia. The company is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia and operates a franchise distribution system. It produces syrup concentrates that is sold to various bottlers worldwide who hold exclusive territories.

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PepsiCo Inc. is an American multinational food, snack and beverage corporation that is headquartered in Harrison, New York. The company has interests in manufacturing, marketing, and distribution of beverages, grain-based snack foods among other products. The company products are distributed across over 200 countries producing an annual net revenue of $43.3 billion. It is the second-largest food and beverage company in the world, after Nestle.

Strengths and Weaknesses

Strengths

Coca-Cola brand is deeply rooted among consumers, unlike the Pepsi brand. Many people are sentimental about Coca-Cola's products and have grown used to it. The company's brand image revolves around emotions and the feeling obtained by people when they drink or think of Coca Cola. It is globally recognized by its brand name and functions in the luxury and loyalty model (Mayurenshnikam & Patil, 2018). Coca-Cola has huge economic assets and distribution set-up that makes it a market giant and easy to capture the global beverage market.

Pepsi Cola also enjoys a strong brand image. However, the company's brand image rotates around its youthful image and social responsibility. It is also globally recognized and its products function in the luxury and loyalty model (Muzumdar, 2014). PepsiCo enjoys the advantage of an experienced management team that aids in the manufacturing of an efficient and competitive product line enabling it to find its place in the global market despite its late arrivals.

Weaknesses

For Coca-Cola, the rivalry and competitive pressure have been increasing from brands such as PepsiCo and Nestle. Coca-Cola, on the other hand, keeps relying on the popularity of its already existing brands (Mayurenshnikam & Patil, 2018). It has low product diversification, limited presence of health drinks, experiences currency fluctuations that result in losses.

PepsiCo experiences various weaknesses that provide barriers to its international growth. Its main weaknesses include low penetration outside the American market, limited portfolio in terms of product offerings and weak marketing to consumers that are health-conscious (Muzumdar, 2014). These weaknesses indicate how the company is yet to maximize its potential revenue outside the American market.

Liquidity Ratios

From the results, Coca-Cola has better liquidity than PepsiCo meaning its current assets can easily be used to pay for its short-term liabilities. Coca-Cola has a stronger ability to service its long-term debt and make interest payments on time due to lower overall debt. PepsiCo uses its existing assets more efficiently to generate sales as evident from its high inventory turnover ratio. Coca-Cola is more profitable since it produces a higher return on its assets than PepsiCo. However, PepsiCo provides more returns to its shareholders compared to Coca-Cola. PepsiCo records a higher market value providing more earnings per share and dividend yield to its investors.

Conclusion

I conclude that Coca-Cola performed better than PepsiCo in 2018. The company records positive liquidity, financial leverage and profitability ratios making it more sustainable in its performance, as opposed to PepsiCo. PepsiCo is good at rewarding its shareholders as it records better earnings per share, dividend yield and returns on equity. However, it is not working efficiently in utilizing its assets to provide better returns for the company.

References

Coca-Cola Annual Report (2018). Ccamatil.com. Retrieved from https://www.ccamatil.com/-/media/Cca/Corporate/Files/Annual-Reports/2019/2018-Annual-Report.ashx

Muzumdar, P. (2014). A study of business process: Case study approach to PepsiCo. Researchgate.net. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/272221472_A_Study_of_Business_Process_Case_Study_Approach_to_PepsiCo

Mayurenshnikam and Patil, V. (2018). Marketing strategy of Coca Cola. Iosrjournals.org. Retrieved from http://www.iosrjournals.org/iosr-jbm/papers/Conf.ADMIFMS1808-2018/Volume-1/12.%2077-85.pdf

PepsiCo Annual Report (2018). Pepsico.com. Retrieved from https://www.pepsico.com/docs/album/annual-reports/2018-annual-report.pdf?sfvrsn=35d1d2bc_2